Lawsuit filed against S.F. police in wheelchair-tipping incident

Updated 3:34 pm, Wednesday, June 10, 2015

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed against San Francisco police alleges that an officer tried to tip a quadriplegic out of his wheelchair, an incident that was caught on video.

Devaughn Frierson said an officer — identified in the lawsuit only by his last name, Carrasco — “purposely and maliciously” grabbed Frierson’s wheelchair on Jan. 18 and tried several times to dump him face-first onto a concrete sidewalk.

Frierson said he was near the corner of Sunnydale Avenue and Hahn Street when he saw officers physically restraining his cousin and a friend. Frierson said he twice asked the officers something to the effect of, “What are you guys doing,” according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

That’s when an officer grabbed his wheelchair and turned it around, the suit says.

Police told him to leave, and Frierson started to comply by backing his wheelchair up, according to the complaint filed by Oakland attorneys John Burris and Lateef Gray.

But Carrasco grabbed the wheelchair “and tried to dump plaintiff out of the wheelchair while saying words to the effect of ‘take your punk ass home,’” the suits says.

“Plaintiff was in mid-air dangling for several seconds while defendant Carrasco repeatedly attempted to dump him over the curb,” the suit says.

Once Carrasco realized that bystanders were filming the incident, “Carrasco then lied and said that plaintiff had run over his foot, which plaintiff absolutely did not do,” the suit says.

The city has not responded to the suit in court. The city, Police Chief Greg Suhr and Officer Carrasco are named as defendants.

Police have said that officers were patrolling in the area when they saw a group of men arguing. Four people were ultimately cited, three for alleged possession of open alcoholic beverages and one on suspicion of obstructing an officer.